Page 29 of Two Chambered Heart

“You like cooking?”

“It’s more a necessity. We like good food, but we don’t like to go out to eat much…. too many people. We started cooking years ago and got pretty good at it over time. Jason loves to buy cookbooks and try out all kinds of recipes.”

It was hard to reconcile the Jason she knew with a guy who would go out and get cookbooks and then make his brother dinner. She filed that information away for later.

It hurt her throat to swallow the food, but Corey ate it anyway. She was so hungry, and the curry was really fucking good. They ate their meal in a comfortable silence.

Just as Corey put her spoon down from scraping the last dregs of curry from her bowl, Kayden was there, collecting her dishes and loading up the dishwasher.

She let out an enormous yawn, not even bothering to cover her mouth.

He came around the counter behind her, squeezing the muscles of her shoulders in a way that had her groaning in pleasure, even with the sharp pain of the wound. Then he finished getting the rest of her tangles out of her hair. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Kayden walked her to her bedroom door, his hands never leaving her. She stepped through the threshold, finally breaking contact, and she felt the loss in her bones.

Before she could even think about what she was saying, she asked him, “Join me?”

She really didn’t want to seem like she was begging, even though her voice came out a little pleading. She realized the dangerous place she’d landed, the attention he’d given her burrowing into her heart and anchoring there. Somehow, in the last few hours, she’d given Kayden the power to actually hurt her.

“Only if you want to,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, trying to backtrack from the vulnerability.

“I don’t usually do things I don’t want to,” he replied, smirking, and followed her into her room.

Chapter fifteen

- Corey -

Morning light bathed Corey's face, as warm as the body pressed up against her. Corey shifted, and Kayden nuzzled himself in closer, tightening his arm around her waist. She ran her fingers through his dishevelled hair, keeping her eyes closed, unwilling to wake up from the high of the night before.

“I like waking up like this,” she murmured honestly.

“Like what?” The words grumbled sleepily into her neck.

“Safe.” she said. And smiled, turning in his arms to face him.

He was awake now, eyes open and locked on hers. “You feel safe?”

“Here? Yes.”

“And before, at your ex’s, you didn’t feel safe?”

Corey thought about her answer before responding. “He was…. unstable. He used to hurt me.”

Kayden looked at her neck, her shoulder, touched his thumb to her lip where he’d bitten her. It definitely felt sore and swollen.

“It seems you have a type.” His eyes were still on her neck.

“You’re not like them.”

“No?” His left eyebrow lifted, like he didn’t believe her.

“Trust me, you’re not. You could have killed me already, and you haven’t even tried. So there’s that.” She tried to say it playfully, making a joke of the situation she’d ended up in.

Kayden’s eyebrows knit together. “You deserve more than the bare minimum, Corey.”

Her name in his mouth had her stomach flipping over itself, like she’d missed a step on the staircase.

“Most men I’ve known in my life have just been takers. They used violence to get what they wanted. The physical abuse was born out of resentment and animosity, just throwing a tantrum when they didn’t get their way. My ex hurt me, but I was big enough to hurt him back. It was worse when I was younger… in foster care, when I was smaller.”

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